Use By vs Best Before: How to Date-Mark Your Products Correctly

Two dates, two completely different meanings

Use by and best before look similar on a label, but they mean fundamentally different things, and confusing them is one of the more serious labelling errors a producer can make. One is about safety; the other is about quality. Getting the wrong one on a product isn't a tidy-up issue, it can put a customer at risk or land you with an enforcement problem.

Here's exactly what each means, when to use which, and how to display them legally.

Use by: a safety date

A use by date relates to microbiological safety. It marks the date after which the food is deemed unsafe to eat. After a use by date, the food should not be sold or consumed, even if it looks and smells fine, because harmful bacteria may have grown to dangerous levels.

Use by dates are required on perishable, higher-risk foods: products that can support the growth of harmful bacteria, typically moist, neutral or low-acid, ready-to-eat or short-life chilled foods. Cooked meats, fresh chilled ready meals, and many dairy products carry use by dates.

The key point: a use by date is a hard safety boundary, not a suggestion.

Best before: a quality date

A best before date relates to quality, not safety. It marks the date up to which the food remains at its best, in flavour, texture, or appearance. After a best before date, the food may have declined in quality but is generally still safe to eat, assuming it's been stored correctly and the packaging is intact.

Best before dates are used on more stable, lower-risk products: tinned goods, dried foods, high-acid preserves, biscuits, and similar items that don't become unsafe over time but do deteriorate.

For products lasting longer than three months, best before can be shown as "best before end" with a month and year, and for very long-life products, just a year.

How to choose which one

The choice follows directly from the safety of your product, and it's driven by the shelf-life assessment you carry out. If your product is the kind that can become unsafe (perishable, ready-to-eat, capable of supporting bacterial growth), it needs a use by date. If it's stable and only deteriorates in quality, it takes a best before.

The dangerous error is defaulting one way without thinking. Putting a best before on a product that should carry a use by understates a real safety risk; doing the reverse causes unnecessary waste and can mislead. The decision should come out of understanding your product's characteristics, which is precisely what setting your shelf life involves. Our guide to setting shelf life covers how to determine which applies.

Displaying the date legally

Under food labelling law, date marks must be displayed correctly:

1. Use by is shown as a day and month (and year where appropriate), for example "use by 14 July."
2. Best before is shown as a day, month, and year for products lasting up to three months; "best before end" with month and year for three to eighteen months; and "best before end" with just the year for products lasting over eighteen months.
3. The date can appear on the label or the label can say where to find it, for example "use by: see lid."
4. The date marking must be clearly legible, easily visible, and indelible, not obscured by a price sticker or promotional label.
5. Where special storage conditions apply, they must be shown alongside (for example "keep refrigerated").
6. For multipacks of individually wrapped items, the date must appear on each individual item where relevant.

Avoid adding non-standard marks like "display until" on consumer products; these aren't legally defined and can confuse customers.

Storage conditions and "once opened"

A date mark only holds if the product is stored as intended, so storage instructions and the date work together. Where the shelf life depends on refrigeration, that instruction is mandatory. Many products also have a shorter life once opened, because the protective packaging or atmosphere is lost; where relevant, you should indicate a period for consumption after opening, for example "once opened, use within 3 days."

Keep date marks tied to your product information

Because your date mark flows directly from your product's characteristics and shelf-life assessment, it needs to stay in step with any change to the product. A recipe change, a new ingredient, or a packaging change can alter the shelf life and even change which type of date mark applies, which means the label must be reviewed. Keeping your product specifications, shelf-life reasoning, and labelling information together makes this reliable. FoodSafe holds your product information alongside the rest of your compliance, so when a product changes you have one accurate place to review the date mark and label from, rather than risking an out-of-date label going to print.

Get it right, every product, every time

Use by means safety; best before means quality. Match the right one to each product based on a proper shelf-life assessment, display it legally and legibly, pair it with the correct storage instructions, and review it whenever the product changes. Date marking is one of the simplest parts of labelling to get right once you understand the distinction, and one of the most consequential to get wrong.

For the full set of labelling requirements your products must meet, see our guide to UK food labelling.

Food safety compliance, handled.